Ok, one quick rant before I leave, because I’ve been meaning to write this for months and always forget.

I’m leaving for San Francisco tomorrow.  There is absolutely no reason that I shouldn’t be able to logon to the Sea-Tac Web site and see the following things:

• How many total people have tickets bought for all flights leaving from my Terminal during the 2 hours before and 1 hour after my flight?
• How does this number compare to other days, and what % of capaicity is this?
• How long have the x-ray line queues been over the last 7 days at the terminal I’m leaving from?
• How long have the x-ray queues historically been the last 3 years for the 2nd Monday in April?
• How many people total have flown out from Sea-Tac this week, in comparison to previous weeks?

Why do I want to know this?  Well, they have all the data.  And I want a better idea whether I need to be there 2 hours early or 30 minutes early.  I want to know if I’m going to be driving all over Sea-Tac looking for a parking lot that isn’t full. 

The point is, an airline ticket is a luxury item, and here’s a really easy luxury service that costs almost nothing on a cost-per-customer basis.  This shouldn’t be hard data to track and post.   I mean, if it takes 1 man year of development time, and the airport serves 2,000,000 people, this comes out to something like a nickel per flyer.    And I don’t see why or how it’s a national security risk. 

Plus, think how it would aleve stress on the workers.  The only stressful flyers are those who are surprised by long lines and who think they are going to miss their flight.  These are usually the same people who are stressed at work and want to leave at the last possible moment.  So why can’t we log-in, check out how long it’s "likely" going to take to get through the line, and decide when we need to leave?  Heck, I might even start choosing flight times based on how long historically the lines are at different times of day. 

Anyway, that’s my idea.   Can someone get on this?  Thanks.